Apple orders 'Lady in the Lake,' starring Natalie Portman, Lupita Nyong'o

Apple TV+ has landed a new limited series called "Lady in the Lake," co-written by Alma Har'el and starring Natalie Portman and Lupita Nyong'o.

The Cupertino tech giant has given a straight-to-order series for the show, which is based on the best-selling novel of the same name by author Laura Lippman. The show will represent Portman's first foray into television.

"The limited series takes place in '60s Baltimore, where an unsolved murder pushes housewife and mother Maddie Schwartz (Portman) to reinvent her life as an investigative journalist and sets her on a collision course with Cleo Sherwood (Nyong'o), a hard-working woman juggling motherhood, many jobs and a passionate commitment to advancing Baltimore's Black progressive agenda," Apple says of the show.

Har'el, Portman, and Nyong'o will executive produce the show. Dre Ryan will also co-create and co-write the series, and serve as an executive producer. Lippman, the author of the book that the show is based on, will also serve as an executive producer.

Har'el's producing partners Christopher Leggett and Portman's producing partner Sophia Mas will also serve as executive producers, along with Jean-Marc Vallee, Nathan Ross, and Julie Gardner. The studio producing the show will be Endeavor Content.

Along with Portman, "Lady in the Lake" will also be Har'el's first television project. Her most recent film, "Honey Boy," won a Sundance award and four Independent Spirit Awards nominations. She's the first woman to be nominated for both a commercial directing and narrative directing DGA Award.

"Lady in the Lake" will join a growing slate of prestige content on Apple TV+. Current award-winning shows on the platform include SAG award-winning "The Morning Show" and "Ted Lasso," which is racking up nominations in the current award season.

6 Comments

harry wild 808 comments · 11 Years

About 3 years ago

Apple TV+ should concentrate on building viewers not awards! An if not all movies and TV shows who appeal to broad audiences are look down upon by critics a never ever win any awards b make billions of dollars. Apple is going their streaming service to win awards!

lkrupp 10521 comments · 19 Years

harry wild said:

Apple TV+ should concentrate on building viewers not awards! An if not all movies and TV shows who appeal to broad audiences are look down upon by critics a never ever win any awards b make billions of dollars. Apple is going their streaming service to win awards!

Quality over quantity, Apple’s model in every endeavor. Watching Jason Statham shoot-em-up movies and Dwayne Johnson beat-em-up movies doesn’t exactly come to mind when thinking of Apple TV+.

cloudguy 323 comments · 4 Years

lkrupp said:

harry wild said:

Apple TV+ should concentrate on building viewers not awards! An if not all movies and TV shows who appeal to broad audiences are look down upon by critics a never ever win any awards b make billions of dollars. Apple is going their streaming service to win awards!

Quality over quantity, Apple’s model in every endeavor. Watching Jason Statham shoot-em-up movies and Dwayne Johnson beat-em-up movies doesn’t exactly come to mind when thinking of Apple TV+.

I agree ... but quality is subjective. There is a massive gulf between "Dwayne Johnson beat-em-up movies" and "stuff only movie critics like." Titanic and the Lord of the Rings trilogy were both critically and commercially successful. In more recent times: Into the Spiderverse and anything by Pixar. Just last year: Joker, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Ford vs. Ferrari, Little Women. Apple's obscurantism by design makes no sense, especially as it can be argued that the more broad-based approaches of Netflix and Disney+ can be used to give more critically acclaimed fare like Roma and Hamilton a bigger platform than they would have had otherwise. What good is Apple having quality (by your estimation) if no one sees it?

bestkeptsecret 4285 comments · 13 Years

Given Manoj Shyamalan's involvement with Apple TV+, I immediately thought of "Lady in the Water"!

Rayz2016 6957 comments · 8 Years

cloudguy said:

lkrupp said:

harry wild said:

Apple TV+ should concentrate on building viewers not awards! An if not all movies and TV shows who appeal to broad audiences are look down upon by critics a never ever win any awards b make billions of dollars. Apple is going their streaming service to win awards!

Quality over quantity, Apple’s model in every endeavor. Watching Jason Statham shoot-em-up movies and Dwayne Johnson beat-em-up movies doesn’t exactly come to mind when thinking of Apple TV+.

I agree ... but quality is subjective. There is a massive gulf between "Dwayne Johnson beat-em-up movies" and "stuff only movie critics like." Titanic and the Lord of the Rings trilogy were both critically and commercially successful. In more recent times: Into the Spiderverse and anything by Pixar. Just last year: Joker, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Ford vs. Ferrari, Little Women. Apple's obscurantism by design makes no sense, especially as it can be argued that the more broad-based approaches of Netflix and Disney+ can be used to give more critically acclaimed fare like Roma and Hamilton a bigger platform than they would have had otherwise. What good is Apple having quality (by your estimation) if no one sees it?

That doesn’t disprove anything he said. Not everyone likes the iPhone. Not everyone has a Mac. This isn’t all that different. Apple is not building AppleTV for everyone, because Apple learned a long time ago that chasing every customer isn’t necessarily the best strategy. Find your niche, learn, dig in, learn, expand your niche, learn …

What hasn’t changed is the response when Apple jumps into a new endeavour.

If it doesn’t make billions in the first six minutes, Apple has failed.
If I don’t like it, then no one else likes it.